It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.